ny there.

My own heart beat hard. The grey wood seemed to lose its ashy tone and
become warm and rosy round us. I bent over her and took her up wholly
in my arms, and she laughed and threw hers around me in wild delight.

"Carry me, Treevor, over the bridge and up the slope at the side. It
is so nice to feel you carrying me."

It was no difficulty to carry her, and the waves of electricity from
her joyous little soul rushed through me till my arms and all the
veins of my body seemed alight and burning.

I ran with her, over the narrow bridge and up the slope, where, as she
said, there was drier ground. And there, on a bed of leaves under some
tangled branches, I fell on my knees with her still clasped to my
breast, and covered her small satin-skinned face with kisses.

"I am yours now. You must not let me go. I only want to look and look
at your face. I wish I could tell you how I love you. Oh, Treevor, I
can't tell you...."

As I looked down, breathless with running and kisses and the fires she
had kindled within me, I saw how her bosom heaved beneath the yellow
jacket, how all the delicate curves of her breast seemed broken up
with panting sighs and longing to express in words all that her body
expressed so much better.

"Darling, there is no need to tell me. I know." And I put my hand
round her soft column of throat, feeling all its quick pulses
throbbing hard into the palm of my hand.

"Put your head down on my heart, Treevor. Lie down beside me; now let
us think we have drunk a little opium, just a little, and we are going
to sleep through a long night together. Hush! What is that? Did you
hear anything?"

She lifted my hand from her throat and sat up, listening.

I had not heard anything. I had been too absorbed. All had vanished
now from me, except the fervent beauty of the girl before me.

The sea of desire had closed over my head, sealing the senses to
outside things; I drew her towards me impatiently.

"It is nothing," I murmured. "I heard nothing." But she sat up, gazing
straight across a small cleared space in front of us to where the
impenetrable thicket of undergrowth again stood forward like grey
screens between the twisted tree trunks.

"Yes, there was something; there, opposite! Look, something is
moving!" I followed her eyes and saw a strand of loose moss quiver and
heard a twig break in the quiet round us. We both watched the
undergrowth across the open space intently. For a second no